


Once and Future

by orphan_account



Category: Chronicles of Narnia - C. S. Lewis
Genre: F/M, Incest, dubcon
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2008-09-05
Updated: 2008-09-05
Packaged: 2017-10-11 18:34:16
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 578
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/115625
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/orphan_account/pseuds/orphan_account
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Susan knows this story, knows it very well. Prince Caspian AU.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Once and Future

  
It is Susan who sees it first. She is watching her brother and Caspian sparring in the courtyard, Cornelius sitting like a wizened and white Merlin beside her. Something dark and unpleasant unfurls in Susan's stomach when she notices what's happening. Peter is the High King, returned to his people in their time of need, and Caspian, dear Caspian, is a Lancelot to his very core. Edmund, she supposes, makes a suitable Sir Kay, although he is so much more than that. She cannot think what role Lucy will play.

Caspian and Peter smile up at her from the yard. She cannot bring herself to smile back.

  
The players have all assembled. Susan cradles her sleeping brother in her lap and tries to decide who she will be. Will she be Guinevere, noble and beautiful and rotten to the core? Will she be Morgan le Fay, traitor and mother of a traitor? Peter shifts restlessly in his sleep and she reaches to smooth his hair away from his brow, gentle, soothing. A breeze rustles in the branches above her. There is a chill in the air- it will be winter soon, time for fortifications and provisions and cabin fever, too long trapped in close quarters. Susan hates the winter. They all do.

  
It is snowing when Peter comes to her the first time, wide-eyed and more than a little drunk. She is to be Guinevere and Morgan le Fay both, and the knowledge is a bitter cup.

"Sister," Peter says, "we must give Narnia an heir."

She does not remind him that he rules Telmar, too. Peter is a king of Narnia first, now as ever.

"Su?"

"My lord," she murmurs, and kisses him gently.

  
Caspian does not speak to her for weeks after the wedding and she wonders if she got something wrong- until one day, during a festival like any other festival, a mysterious knight pleads a token at the jousting. Peter nods, and so she sends the mysterious knight her girdle as a token of goodwill. Her son kicks in her belly and she suddenly feels trapped and stifled. The future is snapping shut, and it eats at her.

  
She is still in bed when Peter tries to kill their son. She hears about the ships and the infants and the storm, and it is like she is in a dream. She wants to tell them that she knows how it ends, but no one would listen. Peter comes back pale and haggard, looking like the old man that he is. He does not touch her again, and she can't decide if it's a relief or not.

  
Aslan is curiously absent. Lucy is too innocent.

  
She cries the first time Caspian makes love to her. He is gentle and patient, a perfect, devoted lover. Susan lets him kiss her quiet. In time, she knows, she will love him.

There is no warning, no burning dragon in the sky to mark the return of her son. He is the very image of his father, and when she meets his eyes for the first time she has to repress the urge to flee. She tries to imagine Peter lying dead on a battlefield, tries to imagine herself in a convent or Caspian hunting the White Hart. She cannot see it. Susan knows this story, knows it very well, but she will fight it to the finish.

She is a Queen of Narnia, and a Pevensie, and herself.

 


End file.
